


paper rings

by bezziemates



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Friends to Lovers, aka best trope ever, it's childhood best friends to lovers, like 5+1 things but 4+1 things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 06:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20719796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bezziemates/pseuds/bezziemates
Summary: “Why is the donut so small?” Lena asks, tilting her head and trying to study it more carefully.Kara laughs, head thrown back. “It isn’t a donut, silly!”“Oh.” Lena blinks. “Then what is it?”“It’s a paper ring! I don’t have any money to buy a real ring so I made you one out of paper,” Kara says, bashfully holding out the paper ring to Lena. Lena holds out her hand, letting Kara slide the ring onto her fourth finger gingerly. The ring is far too big to fit onto her small five-year-old finger, but her heart only warms more at that fact.Or, four times Kara gives Lena a paper ring, and one time she doesn’t.





	paper rings

**Author's Note:**

> idk if anyone cares but yes i’ve been gone forever and i’m sorry i’ve just had so much trouble writing like i’m not in the least bit motivated :( but also season 5 is gonna be a supercorp gold mine so i'm here for it and i'm gonna wRITE STUFF
> 
> anyway, the concept of this fic is partially inspired by paper rings by taylor swift, go listen to the whole lover album bc it’s amazeballs!!
> 
> sorry for any mistakes, i didn’t proofread this that much. enjoy and hope it doesn’t suck, though admittedly it does suck more than usual bc i haven’t written anything in centuries lol
> 
> if there are any tropes you guys wanna read that you think i can write just let me know :)

**1.**

The first time Lena lays her eyes on Kara, the blonde girl is smiling more widely than Lena has ever seen anyone smile. She’s laughing on the swing, an older girl helping to push her. 

Their happiness sort of captivates Lena, and she doesn’t notice how long she’s been staring at them before the blonde girl spots her and immediately says something to the other girl — presumably for her to stop pushing her, because she dismounts from the swing as fast as she can and runs over to Lena.

She’s a little taller than Lena, eyes strikingly blue and full of energy. She’s wrapped in a thick winter coat, making her torso look gigantic as compared to her legs, which are only covered by a pair of jeans. Fur-lined boots sit on her feet, and Lena already wants to be her friend.

“Hi! Do you want to play with us?” the girl asks, and Lena can only stare at her and nod.

The girl’s smile widens, and Lena wonders how a smile so wide can widen even more. “Great! My name is Kara, it’s nice to meet you,” the girl — _ Kara, _ Lena commits the name to memory — exclaims, and after a few moments of slightly awkward silence, Lena realizes that she’s supposed to speak.

“My name is Lena,” Lena replies, and as an afterthought, “it’s nice to meet you too.”

Kara’s gloved hand takes hers and drags her over to the swing without hesitation, gesturing for her to sit on it. “I’ll push you and Alex at the same time! Alex, get on the other one!”

The older girl, presumably Alex, gets onto the other swing and gives Lena a small smile. “Hello, I’m Alex, Kara’s sister.”

Lena gives her a small smile in return. “I’m Lena.”

“Sorry about Kara, she can be very energetic,” Alex whispers conspiratorially, and Kara makes an indignant noise from behind them.

“I’m right here Alex, I can hear everything you’re saying!” Kara says, sticking out her tongue.

Alex sticks her tongue right back out at Kara. “That’s the point.”

Kara slaps Alex’s arm lightly. “Stop and let me push you and Lena on the swing!”

Lena looks over at the benches sitting on the outskirts of the playground, spotting her mother talking to a blonde woman, who Lena thinks could be Kara’s and Alex’s mother. Before she can say anything, Kara is pushing the swings, and Lena’s having more fun than she’s ever had in her life.

It only takes a year before Kara’s sitting in her bedroom and they’re playing with Lena’s new Nintendo-64 that her mother bought her as a gift for getting full marks on all the tests her private tutor had made her sit for.

After they’re done with their sixteenth game of Mario Kart 64, Kara puts down her controller and reaches for her bag, taking out an item that she holds carefully in her closed fist.

“I have something for you,” Kara says, and Lena looks down at her fist, then back up at Kara’s smiling face. For a moment, she wonders what could be in Kara’s hand — they don’t exactly have the biggest hands, they’re only five years old, after all — but her curiosity is sated when Kara unclenches her fist, revealing a donut made of paper.

“Why is the donut so small?” Lena asks, tilting her head and trying to study it more carefully.

Kara laughs, head thrown back. “It isn’t a donut, silly!”

“Oh.” Lena blinks. “Then what is it?”

“It’s a paper ring! I don’t have any money to buy a real ring so I made you one out of paper,” Kara says, bashfully holding out the paper ring to Lena. Lena holds out her hand, letting Kara slide the ring onto her fourth finger gingerly. The ring is far too big to fit onto her five-year-old finger, but her heart only warms more at that fact.

“Why are you giving me a paper ring?” Lena asks, confused, but mostly touched.

“I asked why Mommy wears a ring on her finger and she said it’s because Daddy gave it to her. Then I asked why Daddy gave it to her, and she said because Daddy loves her. And I love you because you’re my best friend, so I made you a ring!” Kara chirps happily. Then she looks down at the ring, and her brows furrow. “Sorry it doesn’t fit.” Her head dips, her hands fiddling sadly in her lap. Lena smiles and takes Kara’s hand.

When Kara looks back up at her, she smiles even wider. “I love it. Thank you, Kara. It means a lot to me. I’ll keep it forever.”

Kara grins. “Really? Really, really, really?”

Lena nods, laughing. “Of course.”

“That’s great! That’s so great!” Kara exclaims, jumping up and down excitedly in her seat on the bed. “I love you, Lena! We’re gonna be best friends forever.”

And Lena doesn’t exactly know what love is — her mother has been out of the house more and more over the past year, and her father is never around, either. Lex is always in his room playing video games and hanging out with his friends.

But one thing Lena knows even if she’s only five, is that if Kara ever left her life for any reason, there would always be a place in Lena’s heart for her. And she supposes that that’s what love is.

“I love you too, Kara,” Lena replies, and she feels like she’s never said anything more truthful.

//

**2.**

There are many things that Lena doesn’t believe in. She calls herself a realist, even though she knows well enough that she’s a secret idealist. No one knows that she’s a secret idealist, not even Kara, but when the blonde flops excitedly onto Lena’s bed after school one day, she wonders if telling Kara that she sometimes dreams of a perfect world might make Kara her wife one day.

“Can you believe that we’re almost into our final year of middle school?” Kara asks, staring at the ceiling, then lifting her head a little from the bed to look at Lena, who sets her bag on the floor and moves to sit down cross-legged beside Kara.

“I’m just excited to go to high school,” Lena says, smiling a little when Kara nods vigorously.

“High school is going to be great. Alex says it’s lame but I think it can be fun! She just hates everyone and everything,” Kara says, lips curling downwards.

“I think most people come to hate everyone and everything as they get older,” Lena replies, and Kara sits up, looking more appalled than ever.

“Lena Luthor, are you seriously joining my sister in the ‘everything sucks’ club?” Kara asks, pulling her puppy dog eyes, and Lena laughs, shaking her head.

“I don’t think everything sucks, Kara. I just think that everything has good and bad in it. And as much as we all want to see the good, we also have to acknowledge the bad. If not, we’ll end up getting hurt all the time by people who have more bad than good in them.”

Kara smiles affectionately at her. “You always know the right thing to say. How do you do that?” Before Lena can reply, Kara reaches into her bag and takes out an object, hidden in her closed fist, and Lena is brought back to the time Kara gave her a paper ring.

“I really want to thank you for being my best friend throughout middle school. I would’ve never gotten through it without you, and since we’re about to graduate in a year, I want to give you this,” Kara says, and opens her fingers, revealing a paper ring that looks much more durable than the first one that Lena got. “I know I’ve given you a paper ring before, but I want to give you another one. I promise it won’t be as big as the other one.”

Lena smiles. “Thank you, Kara. I really appreciate it. I’ll make you one too.”

Kara grins. “No worries!” She opens her other hand, which Lena hadn’t even noticed had anything it it, and reveals an identical paper ring. “I made one for myself too! Now we have matching rings.”

She takes Lena’s hand, gently sliding it onto her fourth finger. “See?” Kara says, smiling proudly. “Perfect fit.”

Lena moves her gaze from the ring up to Kara’s face. “How did you know what size to make the ring?”

Kara smiles sheepishly. “Our sleepover two weeks ago. I measured your finger while you were sleeping.”

Lena’s eyebrows arch. “Is that why you made us play outside for so long? You knew I’m a light sleeper so you wanted to tire me out to make sure I wouldn’t wake up during the night.”

“Sherlock speaks,” Kara says, laughing.

Lena shakes her head, unable to suppress a smile. Her heart is filled with a familiar fullness that she always feels around Kara, and a familiar feeling that she doesn’t know how to describe. Her mother always tells her that she’s too young to know what love is, but Lena is pretty sure this is it for her.

“Thank you, Kara,” she says, voice thick with affection, and Kara just smiles back at her, pulling her into a hug.

“No, thank _you_ for being my best friend.”

And in a perfect world, Kara would replace ‘best friend’ with ‘wife’.

But maybe Lena really doesn’t know what love is. She can’t know who she wants to marry when she hasn’t even gone through puberty, right? Yet, all she can think about is marrying Kara one day. Why would she ever want to marry anyone else if Kara is right here?

Kara’s the one she wants.

//

**3.**

Lena has dreams about Kara.

Usually they involve little clothing and a bedroom, but it’s not a big deal or anything. She can totally still look her best friend in the eye. It’s not like she has a choice, because Kara is busy being oblivious to everyone in the school flirting with her.

Clearly, Lena isn’t the only one who’s taken by Kara. But she’d like to think that her definition of ‘taken’ is much different from other people who barely know anything about Kara. On the contrary, Kara is all Lena’s known, Kara is her whole world, and Lena definitely saw this coming. ‘This’ referring to her being completely and irrevocably in love with Kara.

All she can think about is all the years they’ve spent together. All the times she dreamed of marrying Kara, even as a five-year-old. All the times she looked at Kara and thought about how she’d never seen anyone or anything more beautiful in her life.

She remembers being in middle school and thinking about how she doesn’t want anyone other than Kara. She remembers feeling her cheeks warm and heart rate quicken at Kara’s touch. She remembers sleeping beside Kara and wishing it could be like that every day.

Lena supposes now that they’ve finished high school, and she can actually grasp and comprehend the concept of love, it’s safe to say she’s likely been in love with Kara her whole life.

The thought doesn’t scare her, not really. Perhaps it scares her a little — it would scare her a whole lot less if there were less people vying for Kara, but c’est la vie, Kara is more attractive than anyone Lena has ever seen in her life (and she says this without bias), and it’s completely understandable that there are other people interested in the blonde.

However, when Lena thinks about Kara being in a relationship with anyone other than her, it kind of makes her want to crawl into a hole and die.

It’s not like she plans to tell Kara that she’s in love with her — where is she going to find the courage to do that? But she wants to be able to call Kara her girlfriend, and yet, here they are, in her bedroom, on her bed, still best friends. Nothing more.

“Lena,” Kara says softly.

Lena hums in reply, still thinking about how she’s going to go from here. Not only is she hopelessly in love with Kara, she’s heading off to MIT while Kara’s going to NCU, and it’s going to be hard to make their friendship work while they’re more than 2,000 miles apart.

“I know we’re going to be really far away from each other for the better part of the next four years or so, maybe more, but we’ll make things work. We always make things work,” Kara says, smiling.

Lena nods, mustering a small smile in return. “Of course. We’ll call and text every day. And we can try to visit each other.”

Kara grins. “I’m going to visit you all the time.”

Lena smiles sadly, and they settle into a comfortable silence, until Kara reaches into the pocket of her varsity jacket, and pulls out something held in her closed fist. When she opens it, Lena spots a paper ring, green and blue paper twisted around each other to form a beautiful pattern.

“This is for you, so that you’ll never forget that I’m only one call or one text away. Even if I may not physically be there for you all the time, I’m always there in spirit. And if you ever need me, I’ll fly over to MIT in less than a second,” Kara says, voice laced with a tenderness that makes Lena want to cry.

“That’s not physically possible,” Lena says, almost choking out the words. If Kara keeps this up, she will _ actually _ cry.

“It is now,” Kara replies, smiling.

Lena laughs wetly, a stray tear falling from her eye. “Of course.”

Kara leans forward, hesitantly placing her forehead against Lena’s, and bringing up her hand to gently wipe the tear off Lena’s cheek. She takes Lena’s hand, sliding the ring onto her fourth finger. “I love you, Lena,” she whispers, so soft that Lena wouldn’t be able to hear it if they weren’t in such close proximity.

Kara’s eyes flit to Lena’s lips, then back up to her eyes, and she leans forward a little more, giving Lena plenty of time to pull away. After a few moments, she closes the distance between them, capturing Lena’s lips in a lingering kiss.

When Kara pulls away, their foreheads come together once more, and Lena laughs, sniffing back her tears. “This is horrible timing.”

Kara laughs, kissing her again. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Lena smiles, unable to stop her lips from curling upwards. “Me neither.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, eyes closed, relishing in the moment, then Lena pulls back, looking into Kara’s adoring eyes. “I love you too, Kara.”

Kara shouts happily, pushing Lena down and climbing on top of her, and they collapse onto the bed, kissing and laughing.

//

**4.**

_ “I miss you so much,” _ Kara says, and Lena wishes she could see her girlfriend’s face right now.

“I miss you too, Kara. So much,” Lena replies, sighing and looking down at the notes from her most recent quantum mechanics lecture. She can’t believe that they both have to spend their anniversary doing work, but Kara said she couldn’t make it to MIT because she has a final tomorrow.

_ “Well, if you miss me that much, you should open your door.” _

Lena frowns. “What?” She goes over to the door of her apartment, wrenching it open and finding Kara on the other side, opening her fist to reveal a paper ring made of silver-colored paper.

"Happy anniversary," Kara says, smiling, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Holy shit.”

Kara grins at her, and Lena pulls her into the apartment, kicking the door closed and pulling the blonde into a hard kiss.

“What are you doing here?” Lena asks when they separate, and Kara grins even wider than before.

“Visiting my beautiful girlfriend on our anniversary, of course. What does it look like I’m doing?”

Lena swats her, still in shock, and smiling uncontrollably. “I thought you had a test!”

“I lied.”

Lena swats Kara again, the latter laughing and trying to shield herself from Lena’s attacks.

“Why?”

Kara smiles. “Because I wanted to surprise you. I know you have a test coming up, and I didn’t want you to feel guilty that the sole reason we couldn’t spend time together was because you had a test. And don’t even try to fight me, you and I both know that you’d play the blame game on yourself.”

Lena shrugs. “True that.”

Kara grins, kissing her. “You can study if you want, I just wanted to spend our anniversary _ physically _ together, even if you have to focus your attention elsewhere.”

Lena shakes her head, pulling Kara into the room and falling back onto the bed, Kara on top of her. “Absolutely not. The studying can wait, we have better things to do.”

Kara raises an eyebrow. “You sure?”

Lena nods. “Very.”

A wide smile spreads on Kara’s face, and she leans down, kissing Lena. “I love you,” she whispers against Lena’s lips.

Lena smiles against Kara’s lips. “I love you too.”

//

**1.**

When Lena gets home from work, ready to cuddle on the couch in sweats, eating ice cream and watching _ Brooklyn Nine-Nine _ with Kara, she opens the door to a very unexpected sight.

It takes her a few moments to comprehend it all, which is rare because she never takes more than a short moment to comprehend what she sees. But this time, it does take a few moments. There are rose petals on the floor, and candles, and the lights are switched off. She walks in, taking off her heels, closing the door behind her and following the short trail of petals to the bedroom, where Kara stands, tapping her foot nervously.

She’s wearing the navy button-up that Lena loves, fiddling with her collar, and when she sees Lena, she immediately straightens herself.

“What’s all this, love?” Lena asks, gesturing to the rose petals and candles.

Kara walks forward, taking Lena’s hands in hers. “I think you already know, but I’m going to say it anyway. Lena, you are the love of my life. I’m pretty sure I’ve known that since we first met, or maybe since that first time I gave you a paper ring. Or maybe the second time. Or the third, or the fourth. Either way, I know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, because I might actually die inside if I don’t get to do that.”

Lena laughs, feeling tears spill out of her eyes and roll down her cheeks. Kara reaches up, wiping her away her tears, and she leans forward to place a tender kiss on Lena’s forehead.

Then she moves back a little and sinks onto one knee, reaching into her back pocket and pulling out an object that sits in her closed fist.

After a moment, she opens her fist to reveal a beautiful ring, the small diamond on it giving it a simple yet meaningful appearance.

Kara smiles up at her, eyes filled with hope and love, and Lena’s having an internal breakdown, but, like, the good kind. “Will you marry me?”

And Lena’s imagined this moment a fair number of times over the course of her lifetime, but she’d never actually thought that it would happen. Now that it has, she knows why people dream of a perfect world, why they think a perfect world could exist. Kara _ is _ her perfect world. Perhaps not _ literally _ perfect, but as Lena looks down at the love of her life, asking to spend the rest of their lives together, Lena knows that this is as close as it gets.

She grins so widely she thinks she may never stop smiling. “Yes.”

Kara laughs, taking Lena’s hand and sliding the ring onto her fourth finger. She gets up and wraps her arms around Lena’s waist, pulling her into a kiss.

“I love you so much,” Kara says, kissing her again.

“I love you too, Kara. So much,” Lena replies, pulling her into a hug.

“I would’ve left the ring in the box, but, you know, sentimentality and all—”

“I know,” Lena says, laughing. She presses a tender kiss to Kara’s cheek. “Don’t worry, this was perfect. Beyond perfect.”

Kara grins. “That was the goal.”

Lena lifts up her hand, studying the ring. She holds it up and looks at Kara. “But why is the donut so small?”

Kara bursts into laughter and picks Lena up, walking over to the bed. They collapse onto it, laughing. “It’s not a donut, silly," Kara replies, tucking a strand of Lena's hair behind her ear.

Lena raises an eyebrow. “Oh. Then what is it?”

“It’s an engagement ring. I finally had the money to buy one, so I did,” Kara says, lifting Lena’s hand up and kissing it where the ring sits.

Lena smiles. “I love you.”

Kara kisses her. “I love you too.”


End file.
